New bins rolled out in national parks to tackle deadly Aussie issue
The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) announced on Thursday it had teamed up with OzFish Unlimited — the country's only fishing conservation charity — to roll out the bins at various locations popular among anglers. The first one has been installed in Bongil Bongil National Park on the Mid North Coast, with the rest set to follow in the coming week.
The 'tangle bins' will also be placed in select areas of the Royal National Park, Bents Basin State Conservation Area, Georges River, Kosciuszko National Park and the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, a NPWS spokesperson confirmed to Yahoo News.
Emma Kark, OzFish tackling litter manager, told Yahoo the bins will be monitored regularly. 'Tangle Bins provide opportunities for recreational fishers to safely and easily discard fishing gear they don't need or have collected from their favourite fishing spots,' she said.
'As climate change increases the frequency and severity of threats to Australia's waterways, there has never been a more crucial time to take care of the places we love to fish.'
Discarded fishing gear continues to pose fatal risk to wildlife
Discarded fishing gear is not only a significant source of pollution in the country's waterways, but entanglement and ingestion can injure or kill marine animals.
Yahoo has reported on countless incidents of wildlife being caught up in fishing lines and hooks, including a corella left hanging upside down for days from a tree, a baby dolphin tangled in multiple strands of fishing line, and a turtle who was left fighting for its life after ingesting a hook.
In February, a platypus turned up dead in NSW as a result of entanglement, and last month worried Sydneysiders called for help after spotting an injured cormorant at Balmoral Beach.
While incidents like these are shocking to the public, they're an occurrence that wildlife rescuers see daily, prompting an urgent plea to fishers to 'leave no trace'.
'Fishing line entanglement is massive in the oceans and rivers... A lot of wildlife drown from fishing lines and hooks because they get caught up and they can't get out of the water,' rescuer William Watson previously told Yahoo after wading in a neck-high river to rescue a tangled ibis.
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Additional Return & Earn bins installed at national park
It's understood the fishing tackle bin initiative is part of NPWS's litter prevention strategy.
In addition, the organisation has installed 13 Return & Earn baskets in Georges River National Park so it's easier for visitors to separate recyclables and cash-in cans and bottles. More Return & Earn bins will be installed in other locations in the coming months.
'The NPWS is doing its bit to reduce plastic waste through its litter prevention program,' a spokesperson for the organisation told Yahoo.
'This program is essential to tackle harmful waste through an ongoing coordinated approach to litter prevention within NSW national parks, with the primary objective of reducing rubbish at trial sites by 50 per cent.'
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